


New Way Home

by luninosity



Series: Holiday Fic [1]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Baking, Charles's Unhappy Childhood, Christmas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Holidays, Love Confessions, M/M, Protective!Erik, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas at the mansion (written November 2011). All the festive holiday fluffiness in the world; protective Erik; tiny bit of emotional h/c near the end; realizations of love. First one of the Holiday Fic sequence!</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [New Way Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008975) by [aoiselina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoiselina/pseuds/aoiselina)



> Title and eventual closing lines from the Foo Fighters’ song of that name. The skies were dripping with rain outside, while inside I made tea and wrote to the accompaniment of thunder. And hey, it’s never too early for warm-and-fuzzy holiday fic, right? More Holiday Fic soon--twelve, eventually!

Erik has never really understood Christmas. For one thing—and it’s a rather important thing, considering—he’s technically Jewish. For another, he’s never quite mastered the warm-and-fuzzy goodwill toward one’s fellow man sentiment that Christmas seems to require. Greeting cards and storefronts proclaim messages of peace on earth and loving generosity and these are not concepts that have, heretofore, figured largely in Erik’s violent and vengeful existence.  
   
Which is why, when he comes back from an early-morning run one cold December day to find the mansion covered in lights and wreaths and an explosion of tinsel like the eruptions of a very confused and prolific volcano, he freezes in place and wonders when Charles Xavier discovered a mutant with reality-altering powers, because this cannot possibly be his life.  
   
He ventures through the door, avoiding the reaching tendrils of clinging greenery, and follows the sound of voices into the family room, cautiously, where he finds Charles and the children, surrounded by boxes of glittery objects. Some of them appear to be snowflakes, or reindeer, or jolly fat pink-cheeked men. Some of them, even more horrifyingly, play music when Sean pokes at them.  
   
“You know what we should do?” Raven says. “Caroling. Sean would be fantastic at caroling.”  
   
“I know some songs, too—”  
   
“We know what songs you know, Alex, and no one wants to hear that—”  
   
“I’m trying to be helpful, you guys. What about Hank? Hank would make an awesome Santa Claus.”  
   
“I really think not—”  
   
“Please,” Charles says, laughing, “yes to caroling, no to Alex choosing our repertoire, perhaps to the suggestion involving Hank—”  
   
“Professor, I’d rather not...”  
   
“Come on, bigfoot!”  
   
“—and continue to sort this out without me, will you? I’ll be back momentarily.” Charles gets up, glitter in his hair and stuck to one cheekbone, and comes over to where Erik is still standing in the doorway because he’s forgotten how to move.  
   
“Hello,” Charles says. “I thought we should have a proper Christmas, don’t you agree? Most of them never have had a chance for real holidays, and they’ve been working so hard, and—Erik, really? I can hear those thoughts, you know.”  
   
“You said you wouldn’t read my mind without permission.”  
   
“Yes, but you’re shouting at me.”  
   
“Sorry.” Clearly he needs to think more quietly. It’s difficult, because apart from the whirl of festivity-induced confusion, he also finds his gaze drawn back to the glitter on Charles’s face. It’s distracting. He really wants to reach out and brush it away.  
   
He puts both hands behind his back instead. “I have to…shower. So I’m going to go. And…shower.”  
   
“All right,” Charles says, looking amused. Damn. “If you’d like, you can help sort out decorations, afterwards. I bought rather a lot, I’m afraid.”  
   
“ _Absolutely_ not,” Erik grumbles, and makes his escape, with the tinkling tune of a music-box “Jingle Bells” drifting up the stairs behind him. The memory of a single fleck of glitter, sparkling next to wide blue eyes, accompanies him into the shower regardless.  
   
Things only get worse from there.  
   
Hank proves to be quite creative as regards mobile light displays, and Erik puts up with a multicolored strobe-light effect outside his window for all of one hour before he heads over to the lab and says “No.” Hank apologizes profusely, after he stops attempting to hide from Erik’s scowl under his desk, and the light show travels to the other side of the mansion, where Sean doesn’t seem to mind.  
   
Angel and Raven go shopping and return with colorful fabric, and Angel proves to have unsuspected talents regarding the transformation of said fabric into actual objects, namely Christmas stockings for everyone. She even stitches each person’s name on each one. And Raven wears sparkly earrings shaped like candy canes and occasionally stretches her ears into elf-points, just for practice.  
   
Erik starts going for much longer runs. If he’s tired enough, he won’t notice the garlands wrapped around the staircase, or the sounds—he refuses to call it music—of popular Christmas records being played with torturous persistence on a daily basis.  
   
For a while, nightly games of chess with Charles provide solace; the holiday infection hasn’t spread to that shared space quite yet, and Erik finds himself looking forward to the conversations, the challenge, the ritual ending of every day. He’s not finding much peace and goodwill in the onslaught of popcorn garlands and miniature snowglobes, but when he glances up across the chessboard at that familiar tiny half-smile, the one that Charles gets when he’s planning some elaborate self-sacrificial play, some move that Erik will never anticipate because he doesn’t think that way, but that’s likely to be both elegant and devastating, he feels a tiny unexpected shiver of warmth in the vicinity of his heart.  
   
He doesn’t name that feeling, because he doesn’t want to examine it too closely. But it lingers anyway, like the memory of glitter on a cheekbone, or the brush of graceful fingers against his hand when Charles gets up to get them another drink, or the abstract and distant idea that might be contentment.  
   
But in fact Charles seems to be perpetuating the festive insanity, which Erik realizes early one evening when he arrives, as usual, to dig Charles out from under the never-ending pile of books in his study for that night’s game. When he taps on the doorframe—Charles likes to work with the door open, but isn’t looking in his direction—Charles, instead of offering any remotely normal greeting, brushes hair out of his eyes and proclaims “Fruitcake!” in Erik’s direction.  
   
To which Erik replies, “Ah…apple strudel?” because if this is some sort of bizarre dessert-naming challenge then he’s happy to play along, though he does wish Charles would explain the rules.  
   
Charles stares at him, and then bursts out laughing. “Sorry! I was just trying to think of other holiday traditions we haven’t yet tried. And, um, banana pudding.”  
   
“Banana pudding? Really? Also, what is this strange obsession you have involving tropical fruit? Bananas, pineapples…” And now he’s picturing Charles eating a banana. He might have to go have a second shower before they can actually play chess. A very cold shower.  
   
“I like tropical fruit, apparently. Do you think we can put pineapple in the fruitcake?”  
   
“I think you can put anything you want in a fruitcake. Isn’t that the point?”  
   
“Hmm,” Charles says. “All right, then, I will. And you’re sharing the responsibility for the outcome.”  
   
“I am not responsible for your sudden interest in fruitcake, Charles. Coming?”  
   
“Of course. Also, it’s your turn. Mocking my banana pudding doesn’t count, you know.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
“But you haven’t said anything.”  
   
“I know. I’m allowing you to enjoy the anticipation.”  
   
Charles makes an expression that’s somewhere between cheerful amusement and thwarted frustration, and yet still impossibly attractive. “I could find out what you’re thinking about. Easily.”  
   
“But you won’t.” And thank god for the fact that Charles has morals and won’t actually break his promise without an invitation. “Black, or white?”  
   
“White. And if I win you tell me what you’re thinking. And then help me with the fruitcake.”  
   
Erik contemplates this bargain for a few seconds. He’s not mentally prepared to do either of those things, the former because then he’d never be able to look at Charles, or bananas, again, and the latter just because the idea of himself making a fruitcake is, frankly, unimaginable.  
   
But Charles is smiling at him, the golden light from his office lamps playing across those star-sapphire eyes, and he can’t come up with any good counteroffer, or even a halfway clever reply.  
   
So he’ll just have to not lose. “Fine.”  
   
It’s one of their closest games yet, culminating in a dramatic struggle involving his own rook, Charles’s king, and two pawns. But he does win, and then spends several sleepless hours in bed afterwards wondering what would’ve happened if he’d lost.  
   
The next morning, while they’re eating breakfast, Erik waits until Charles has just taken a sip of tea, and then offers, thoughtfully, “Peppermint ice cream.”  
   
Charles, once he can breathe again, retorts, “Strawberry-rhubarb pie,” and the children stare at them like they’ve both gone insane, and Erik finds himself wanting to laugh. He’d never used to laugh much, and then mostly in rather bloody and unamusing situations, and then he’d met Charles Xavier.  
   
These days he still doesn’t laugh much—the sound of his own genuine amusement still startles him—but he wants to. More than he’d ever thought possible.  
   
 _You did that on purpose_ , Charles thinks at him, accusingly but not with any heat. This is technically not a breach of his promise; he’s only projecting, not digging around in Erik’s head, though one could of course argue that this is splitting hairs. Erik doesn’t particularly feel like making that argument, though. He answers, instead.  
   
 _And?_  
   
 _Oh…all right, then. Rematch, tonight?_  
   
 _Of course._ “Also…pralines.”  
   
“Do pralines technically count as a dessert food?”  
   
“Yes,” Erik says firmly, even though he really has no clue about the appropriate meal-related timing for praline consumption.  
   
“What,” Raven says to her brother, “are you two _doing_?”  
   
“Nothing!” Charles says hastily, and looks at Erik for help. Erik raises an eyebrow at him.  
   
 _She’s your sister; you answer her._  
   
 _You can’t hear what she’s thinking! She thinks you and I are—_ Abruptly Charles stops talking, and Erik has to force himself not to demand the rest of that sentence, as well as some insight into whatever is making Charles blush so impressively.  
   
“He does _not_ ,” Charles says to Raven, out loud, “and yes, I am, and thank you for the incredibly patronizing concern, but I have things to do in the kitchen now.” And then vanishes, with such alacrity that Erik ponders for a second the possibility that Charles has developed a hitherto unrevealed secondary mutation.  
   
Raven looks at Erik, opens her mouth, and then closes it again, but starts to grin instead, with a truly alarming amount of glee. Erik decides that retreat is a tactically sound option at this particular juncture, and departs as well, before Raven realizes that her fork has tied itself to her knife in an inseparable knot.  
   
The fruitcake, deprived of any input from Erik, appears on the table later that evening, after dinner. Reactions, among the children, range from “why fruitcake, again?” to “not that bad!” to “is there pineapple in here?” to “aren’t you supposed to let them age for, like, a hundred years?” Erik pretends to be uninterested but sneaks down to the kitchen later that night, intending to try an unobtrusively tiny piece, and ends up eating half the remainder. It’s delicious.  
   
No one ever mentions the ongoing night-time fruitcake thefts, but, a few days later, he finds a second fruitcake sitting on the table next to his bed, neatly wrapped.  
   
That one is also delicious, and he doesn’t have to share it with anyone. It’s all his.  
   
He’s not sure exactly when he developed such possessive feelings about fruitcake, but if he’s honest with himself, he suspects that it has some relation to the way Charles smiled at him, the morning after his first late-night kitchen expedition.  
   
The day after the first fruitcake, someone hangs mistletoe over all the doorways in the mansion. Charles, when he sees Erik’s expression, turns red, says, “I’m so sorry, this one wasn’t me, I promise, I’m certain they were just having a laugh, I’m sorry again, I’ll go—!” and runs away to spend all morning taking the cheerful little bunches down.  
   
Erik stands there staring after him, not having been given a chance to reply. That might be a good thing, because he’s not sure what he would have said, or whether he could have said anything at all.  
   
He wonders whether Charles would have objected, if Erik had reached up and taken the mistletoe out of his hand and put it back in place. Whether Charles would have blushed again, and, perhaps, finally finished the sentence that Erik’s been thinking about since the previous day, or maybe not finished the sentence, because in Erik’s momentary excursion into fantasy, Charles’s lips are otherwise and very pleasurably occupied.  
   
He takes a much longer shower than strictly necessary, after that. The mistletoe is entirely gone by the time he emerges. He tells himself he’s not disappointed by the absence, and pretends it isn’t a lie.  
   
Unlike the fruitcake, the threatened Christmas-caroling expedition doesn’t actually materialize, for which Erik is profoundly grateful, after it turns out that the only person among them who actually can sing is in fact Charles, who says he can’t and so it’s all right anyway.  
   
Erik knows that this is a lie, however, because he gets up to go running early one morning and when he jogs past the kitchen, heading for the back door, he hears Charles singing, softly, while looking for something in the pantry.  
   
It sounds like an old song, something traditional and quiet, something Erik doesn’t know, and no, Charles isn’t a musical prodigy, he’s not ever going to be famous for it, but he has a beautiful voice anyway, soft and kind of fuzzy around the edges and somehow friendly, as if he’s smiling the entire time. And Erik just wants to hold his breath and listen because Charles hasn’t seen him yet and he’s never heard Charles sing before, and why didn’t he know Charles could sing?  
   
But then Charles, no doubt sensing his presence, stops, blushing a little. “Sorry! I didn’t realize anyone else was awake yet; did you need something?”  
   
“No. And don’t stop because I’m here.” He perches on the edge of the table, forgetting about his plans, and watches Charles collect a truly astonishing number of ingredients.  
   
“You don’t really expect me to sing when you _are_ here, do you? Can you get out the cookie sheets, by the way?”  
   
“Of course.” They float over to Charles at waist level, and Charles plucks them out of the air and grins.  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
“You’re welcome. Why not?”  
   
“Why not what? Oh. It’s not about you, really. I just don’t…sing in front of people. Preheat the oven?”  
   
“Got it. Why are you making cookies at five in the morning?”  
   
“Well, if I didn’t, they wouldn’t be a surprise when everyone got up, would they? Except you. I’m starting to think you never sleep.”  
   
“Too much sleep is a luxury. Why not, in front of people?”  
   
“Because I’m really not very good. And I hate to appear less than perfect, you know.” Charles grins again, except there’s some real truth behind that statement, some sharp little edges that aren’t arrogance or vanity, though of course Charles is definitely capable of being arrogant too, but that’s not what this is. Erik isn’t quite sure _what_ it is—surely Charles doesn’t actually ever suffer from self-doubt, that’s ridiculous—but he can’t quite figure out why Charles thinks Erik wouldn’t want him to sing. Because Erik, very definitely, does.  
   
And Charles got up at five in the morning—before five, actually, since he’s apparently been down here for a while—to try to make everyone else have a slightly better day, little pieces of the holidays they’ve never gotten to have. Erik doesn’t understand that, either, but if anyone would do something like that for other people, it would be Charles, the only person he knows who has ever found him, Erik, worth rescuing, ever.  
   
The kitchen smells like cookies and tea, because Charles occasionally pauses to take a sip out of his oldest mug, the one with the chipped handle, and Erik sits there on the table watching him bake, the sleeves of that oversized sweater rolled up and no shoes on, just socks protecting those feet from the cold tile floor, and forgets to go for his run because he’s just so damn comfortable there.  
   
When Charles needs more cookie sheets, Erik pulls them out of the drawer before he can ask for them, and Charles smiles at him, and Erik feels that odd little pulse of  warmth return, somewhere deep in his chest.  
   
After a while, Charles starts singing again, quietly, almost under his breath. When he catches Erik looking at him he blushes again, but doesn’t stop, and when Charles finds a song he knows, Erik hums along.

The day that the Christmas tree appears, so tall it almost pierces the ceiling, Erik says, “I’m not helping you decorate that monstrosity, you know,” and Charles gives him a pathetic look. “Think of it as training. Ornaments have metal in them. Metal hooks…”  
   
“Charles, you do realize that I’m Jewish.” Not that he practices—he’s more or less given up any faith in an all-knowing God—but still, completely worth it for the look on Charles’s face.  
   
“I’m so sorry—Erik, I should have asked you—can I do anything for you, I’m sorry again, of course you don’t have to help with all of this, and I can get rid of some of this if you’d like—” _This_ , of course, meaning the profusion of sparkly decorations, which seem to be multiplying in the night, or every time Erik isn’t looking.  
   
“Charles,” he says, because it was funny at first but now Charles actually looks distressed, as if he really feels pained at not having remembered, “it’s fine. I don’t mind your disturbing attack of holiday spirit.” Well, at least not for that reason. He’s not sure he’ll ever be reconciled to plastic reindeer on the roof.  
   
“I really am sorry.”  
   
Erik sighs. “And I really don’t mind. Here.” _I don’t mind. I promise_. He tries to make each word of that thought as clear as possible, and louder than usual, and he knows exactly when Charles hears them because those jewel-box eyes go wide with surprise.  
   
 _Erik, you—did you want me to hear that?_  
   
 _Yes._  
   
 _Thank you._  
   
 _You know I mean it, then?_ “I’m still not helping you with the tree, though.”  
   
 _Yes. And you know I’m sorry anyway_. “You’re not going to make me do this with the children by myself, are you? Because you realize how badly that’s going to go. And I need someone taller than I am to assist with this.”  
   
 _You don’t have to be_. “Using your tiny physical stature against me counts as cheating, Charles.”  
   
 _I know, I just—_ Charles bites his lip, as if that somehow helps to hold back a purely mental comment, and then inquires, hopefully, “Yes, but will cheating work?” and Erik gives in because he’s not going to win, defeated at the start by those blue eyes and that plaintive expression.  
   
“Fine. But if all your ornaments end up crooked, you will have only yourself to blame.”  
   
“I can live with that,” Charles says, and smiles, and Erik is too caught up in the brightness of that smile to ask, right then, what Charles might’ve been going to say. Later that night, after all the laughter and the successful tree decoration and what in the end proves to be only minimal loss of ornaments, as he settles into his surprisingly cold bed, he finds himself wishing he had.  
   
On Christmas Eve, Charles disappears after dinner, with the mysterious comment, “I have to pick something up, I’ll be back momentarily,” and Erik almost sneaks out to follow him but decides at the last minute that Charles would probably hate him for spoiling whatever last-minute surprise is being planned.  
   
Instead, he wanders off to the library, and examines the assortment of books that have been gathered there, over the years. Charles has eclectic taste; Erik spots everything from Machiavelli to T.H. White to T.S. Eliot to Robert Heinlein. He’s not, actually, surprised by that; he can picture Charles enjoying science fiction’s optimism about the future all too easily.  
   
The night, outside, watches him through the open window with sharp cold clarity, like the stars are waiting for something to happen. As if they want to see what he’ll do.  
   
The temperatures have been near-freezing all week; no snow has fallen, though, and each blade of grass, in the moonlight, shimmers reflectively, icy mirrors that don’t tell Erik anything about what they expect from him.  
   
The children are downstairs entertaining themselves, and the Christmas music has been turned up far too loudly, and he’s alone in the library because Charles isn’t there, and despite the inviting presence of all the comfortable books, and all the noise echoing up the stairwell, he somehow feels lonely, because Charles isn’t there. And when did that happen? When did he stop being happy with only himself, and happier, instead, with Charles?  
   
He’s debating the Machiavelli, an old and familiar friend, versus the Heinlein, because perhaps he should try to make new friends, to discover what Charles sees in that enticingly imaginative horizon, when he hears the explosive crash and shattering sounds and shouting voices from downstairs, and then all the fire alarms go off at once.  
   
By the time he sprints down the stairs, there’s no more fire, but there is a smoldering husk of once-magnificent Christmas tree lying across the entrance to the greatroom, and dangerously glittering shards of broken ornaments and no-longer-recognizable decorative figurines painting everything with perilous sparkle, and white fire-extinguisher residue everywhere, on the tree, on the carpet, on the children themselves.  
   
Erik tries to find appropriate English words, can’t, and settles for, “ _What the hell just happened?!”_  
   
“Um,” Hank says, “well, the tree was Alex’s fault—”  
   
“The oven was your fault, sasquatch!”  
   
“The oven?” Erik turns around to look into the kitchen, and, yes, there’s shattered glass and a—a _hole_ in the oven?  
   
“Explain this to me. Now.”  
   
“Um…” Hank looks petrified, and Raven pushes him out of the way and takes over the duty of explanations. “They were trying to see how fast Hank could throw a baseball with his feet—”  
   
“At the _Christmas tree_?”  
   
“No…it was supposed to go out the window…only he missed and hit the oven…”  
   
Which explains the kitchen, but not the post-apocalyptic dead tree poking out into the entryway. “Go on.”  
   
“Well…Alex was sort of in the way, and he ducked, but he kind of panicked…” Alex is now trying to hide behind Hank, as if he thinks that might keep him safe from the force of Erik’s anger. In the background, the fireplace pokers are winding themselves into tight spirals of rage.  
   
“You,” Erik hisses at them, “are going to clean this up—all of it—before he gets back. Or I will personally—”  
   
“Erik,” Charles says from behind him, “why are you threatening everyone with unspecified bodily harm?” and Erik spins around and tries to use himself as a barricade, to keep Charles from seeing the wreckage of the room. Charles is a lot shorter than he is; maybe it’ll work.  
   
Of course it doesn’t work. The absence of tree is noticeable over all their heads, not to mention that it’s fallen absurdly out into the entryway and half-blocked the stairs, and Charles stands on tiptoe to peer over Erik’s shoulder anyway, and his eyes go wide, with much the same expression a Roman citizen might have worn following a visit from a horde of Visigoths.  
   
“Is everyone all right? What happened?”  
   
Of course that would be his first question, Erik thinks. Not _who’s responsible for this_ or _why did you decide to destroy the Christmas tree, you idiots?_ No, Charles wants to know that everyone is fine.  
   
“We’re sorry,” Sean says, staring at his feet. “It was the…with the ball…in the kitchen…and then Alex set it on fire and…but we put it out…but then the fire extinguisher…and that was it, really.”  
   
“Can I have that one more time,” Charles asks, “with the pauses filled in, please?”  
   
The explanation takes longer this time. Charles doesn’t say anything, and Erik can’t read his expression, which means something in itself because Charles has a terrible poker face and generally shows all his emotions to everyone happening to pass by. Erik, unfortunately, doesn’t know _what_ , exactly, the absence of emotion means now.  
   
After Sean finishes, Charles takes a deep breath and says, “All right, thank you. Can you start cleaning some of this up—carefully, of course, there’s broken glass everywhere—and I’ll come join you in a moment, after I put some things away?”  
   
The children stare at him. Raven finally ventures, “You’re not mad?” right before Erik, in equal disbelief—he knows how hard Charles has been trying to make Christmas perfect for them—can ask the same question.  
   
“Would it help anything,” Charles observes, “if I yelled at you all? Besides, I’m fairly certain you feel guilty enough. I can sense these things, you know.”  
   
And it’s kind of a weak attempt at humor, but smiles start to appear anyway, out of the relief that comes from knowing that retribution is both deserved and probably won’t occur.  
   
“I’ll be right back, then.” Charles collects fallen packages and picks his way around collapsed tree branches and up the stairs.  
   
The second he’s out of sight, Erik turns his best intimidating glare on the children and says, “You. Are. Going. To. Fix. This.” They all have the sense not to speak, and just nod, in rather impressive unison. Perfect.  
   
“I will be in the kitchen,” Erik tells them, “trying to fix _that_. If you have questions, you ask me. You do not bother him with anything. Clear?”  
   
More nods.  
   
“Good,” Erik snarls, and stalks off to see what he can do about the oven.  
   
As it turns out, Hank can throw a baseball very damn fast. The hole goes right through the oven and out the other side, and Erik can bend the jagged metal edges back together but he’s not sure he’d try to cook anything in it, afterwards. At least the oven slowed the impact enough that there’s no corresponding hole in the mansion wall as well, he thinks ferociously, and gives the metal a vicious twist.  
   
To make matters worse, Charles has been storing pie plates and cookie sheets in the oven, and there are matching holes in quite a few of those, too.  
   
He’s lost track of time, staring at the last pie plate and wondering whether he should try to buy Charles some new ones, whether the offer of them will help erase that unnerving expressionlessness, when Raven walks in, tiptoeing her way around pieces of glass.  
   
“Erik?”  
   
“ _What?”_ Erik snaps, jolted out of his will-new-pie-plates-make-Charles-smile reverie, and then modifies his tone, because he does like Raven, really. He’s just irritated with them all right now. “What do you need?”  
   
“Well…” She looks a little uncomfortable, but she doesn’t back away from his gaze. “We were just wondering…have you seen Charles? I was talking to Hank and we thought…we checked with the others…and no one’s seen him for a while, actually. Since we got the tree cleaned up, I think. I know he was there for that, he helped me with the lights…”  
   
But that had been at least two hours ago. Erik stares at her, and feels a little intruding crawl of concern start to creep up his spine. “He hasn’t been in here, no. Did you check—”  
   
“I checked the study, and his bedroom, and Hank looked in the lab, I think, and the garage, and he says all the cars are still here.” Raven frowns, and a shudder of blue passes over her body, quickly. “We kind of thought you’d know.”  
   
“I don’t.” And that fact irritates him more than it should. He should know. What if Charles needs something, and he isn’t around? He would also be annoyed by the fact that the children seem to assume he always knows where Charles is, except he can’t be annoyed by that, because he _wants_ to always know where Charles is.  
   
“All right. Don’t scare anyone else. Yet. I’ll go…” Do what? Look again? Might Charles magically reappear because Erik is doing the looking?  
   
But Raven says “Thank you,” and eyes him hopefully, like she thinks that might be the case, and Erik bites his lip and leaves the last pie plate in pieces and heads for Charles’s bedroom. Maybe Charles has just decided he’s fed up with the lot of them and has gone to bed, and then chosen to hide from Raven’s curious knock. Erik wouldn’t blame him.  
   
But when he knocks, no one answers. And when he stares at the lock until it opens and then steps inside, just to make sure, there’s a definite absence of blue eyes and inviting accent.  
   
Once in the room, Erik eyes the pillow-covered monstrosity of a bed—why does Charles need so many pillows? can’t he only sleep on one at once?—but concedes that Charles probably hasn’t been eaten by feather-stuffed fluffy objects, and backs away. He doesn’t feel guilty about breaking into the bedroom—the concern is starting to outweigh any moral qualms Charles has successfully instilled in him so far—but he does feel a little bit guilty for noticing that Charles has blue silk sheets, the exact color of his eyes, and for wondering, momentarily, what all that pale skin would look like with such a backdrop.  
   
Charles isn’t in the library, or his study, which as usual appears to be the dwelling place of a very literate tornado, and Erik takes an extra second to make certain that Charles hasn’t been crushed to death by a toppled stack of books. But no.  
   
And he’s not in the kitchen, and he hasn’t come back to help the children clean up the end of the debris in the greatroom, where Raven pauses with an inquiring look and Erik shakes his head, briefly, and runs back into the hallway, because now he’s actually starting to really worry, just a little bit but persistently.  
   
He checks his own room, too, just in case. Maybe Charles has stopped by looking for him for some reason, perhaps to persuade Erik into helping him shop for replacement decorations, or to share a drink, which Charles probably needs considering the disaster downstairs, or just because Charles likes spending time in Erik’s company, a fact which Erik is baffled by but will happily accept whenever he can.  
   
Charles feels comfortable enough in Erik’s company to sing in front of him, he thinks, apropos of nothing. It’s a good thought, and it makes him smile, even in the face of the lurking worry.  
   
But no, Charles isn’t there waiting for him, either. There is, however, an object sitting on Erik’s bed. It’s a chess set.  
   
It’s not just a chess set, though. The board, and the pieces, are all made of metal, decorative graceful swirls of light and dark, polished steel and burnished copper with gold flecks and silver highlights, the calm regularity of the squares whispering to him, drawing him in. Charles has left the pieces all set up, arrayed in precise ranks, and there’s a tiny note on recognizably creamy paper in the center of the board, neatly lined up with the edges of the squares.  
   
 _I know it’s not precisely your holiday, but I couldn’t bear to not get you anything. And I also know we already enjoy my old set, but I thought you ought to have one that’s truly yours, as well. Perhaps we can test it out, later?_  
   
Erik stares at the note, at Charles’s messy handwriting, the ends of letters tumbling over each other in every direction, and runs his thumb across the ink, touching the words, and then sits down on the bed, because he’s not sure whether he wants to laugh or cry but he’s fairly certain that he does need the solid support of heavy antique furniture, at the moment.  
   
Charles bought him a gift. Something beautiful, for no reason, except that Charles wanted to make Erik happy. Something that, he thinks, isn’t his, it’s _theirs_ , because of course that last cheerful question— _perhaps we can test it out?_ —is part of the gift, too, except that’s a gift that’s been offered all along.  
   
He picks up the white king, carefully, and it feels inviting to his touch, and maybe he’s imagining it but it says _Charles_ to his fingertips, too, warm and kind and intricately lovely, layers of multifaceted brilliance and playful challenges and all the secrets of times past and complex skill that can’t be seen under the polished exterior.  
   
Between one heartbeat and the next, he realizes that he’s fallen in love with Charles Xavier. Hopelessly, spectacularly, deeply, in love.  
   
It’s not even a surprise, really, though of course it is, when he hears himself think it. But underneath that, he knows he’s been headed there all along.  
   
And it would be fantastic if he could find Charles, to tell him this. To find out if Charles feels the same way, or could feel the same way, maybe, if Erik can have the chance to try to convince him. Erik has never been a romantic sort of person—he’s as baffled by Valentine’s Day as Christmas—but if Charles indicates that there might be hope, then Erik will try to learn to be romantic. He does have a fair amount of tactical knowledge, after all. Surely that experience will translate into this new campaign arena.  
   
But, despite the fact that his world has just spun around and reordered itself in the space of a minute and the width of a chess set, it’s not perfect, because he still hasn’t actually _found_ Charles, and Erik hops back to his feet and heads for the door. He puts the white king into his pocket, where it can reassure him, as he gets up.  
   
The infirmary? Had Charles somehow managed to cut himself on a broken ornament or piece of glass, earlier, without anyone noticing? Erik doesn’t think so, but he hasn’t been watching the whole time, and maybe something had happened while he hadn’t been there. He pictures Charles in pain and alone, because of course Charles wouldn’t tell anyone, and the thought stabs pointy icicles into his chest, and he almost breaks his own ankle sprinting down the old and uneven stairs to the infirmary. They should really get those fixed, he thinks irrelevantly.  
   
But Charles isn’t down there, either, and Erik clings to the doorframe and stares at the empty room and slides his hand into his pocket and feels the white king there, calm and stoic in his hand.  
   
And now the worry has begun boiling over into panic, which is horrifying because Erik doesn’t panic, he doesn’t let himself lose control like that, ever, but Charles bought him a chess set and sang to him in the kitchen and smiled at him and now Charles is missing and Erik doesn’t know what to do.  
   
He knows what he _could_ do, of course, what all his years of self-discipline and training have taught him to do. He has any number of skills that might apply in this situation; he’s very good at finding people, and if someone took Charles away from him then Erik will go through as many someones as he has to in order to get Charles back. But right now he doesn’t know anything for certain and he can’t even think straight, because Charles is still missing.  
   
He takes a deep breath, and runs back up the dreadful stairs, and then thinks of what he should’ve tried first, after all, and shouts _CHARLES!!_ as loudly as he can, in his head.  
   
He’s not expecting an answer, at this point. Either Charles is hurt or ill somewhere or he’s been forcibly kidnapped or he’s just possibly avoiding everyone for some reason and Erik doesn’t know what that reason might be but the possibilities that present themselves are all terrifying, and he has always asked Charles to stay out of his head because of objections that he can’t recall right now, and Charles has been trying very hard to respect that request and so won’t hear or answer him anyway.  
   
But, amazingly, he gets a prompt reply, and he almost falls over in the hallway with the rush of abrupt relief.  
   
 _Erik? What—why are you upset? Are you all right? What happened?_  
   
 _Charles, where are you?!_  
   
 _I’m outside, why—_  
   
 _Why are you outside? Do you know how cold—it’s freezing outside, Charles!_ Erik is already out the door, not bothering to put on a sweater or reply to the startled glances of the children as the antique wood slams shut behind him. The wind chill bites through his shirt like frozen bullets.  
   
 _I AM the one outside, Erik, of course I know. What’s wrong?_  
   
 _I can’t—_ “Where the hell are you?” Erik says, out loud, frustrated. He has excellent night vision but there are too many damn trees and snowmen and twinkly lights and he doesn’t know which direction to look.  
   
“I’m over here,” Charles says, and appears from around the corner of the mansion, one of the darkened areas near the back where the festive tentacles of decoration haven’t yet managed to spread. The moon pops out from behind a cloud and highlights his face for just a second, but then he keeps walking and the light doesn’t keep up.  
   
“I didn’t go very far, Erik, don’t worry. Please tell me what’s wrong; I’m really not eavesdropping but you’re very concerned about something and—” The rest gets cut off as Erik’s arms go around him, so tightly that Charles actually squeaks in protest.  
   
 _Ow! Erik, what—_  
   
 _You’re freezing. Come back inside. You need to get warm. Now._  
   
 _I’m fine!_  
   
 _You are not!_ Charles is wearing one of his enormous woolly sweaters, true, but he’s not wearing gloves and his hands are icy when Erik touches them, and so is his cheek, when Erik reaches up to test that.  
   
“Charles, why are you outside?”  
   
“Oh…I just wanted some space, I think.” Charles sighs, softly, and leans against him, and lets Erik hold him, the two of them standing there on the frozen ground next to illuminated plastic reindeer, under the colorful lights that sprinkle artificial red and green glints over the world. “I wanted to—no, you’ll think it’s silly. It’s not important.”  
   
“If it is important to you,” Erik tells him, firmly, “it is important to me. Especially if it makes you run out into the cold with no gloves on.” _Especially if it makes you leave me. Us. All of us._  
   
Charles looks at him, startled. _I wouldn’t leave you_. “Sorry. That one was loud. Erik, you don’t think I’d ever actually leave you—any of you—do you?”  
   
 _I hope never_. “Please tell me, then.”  
   
 _You don’t mind me hearing that?_ “You won’t—it’s _not_ important, Erik. Seriously.”  
   
 _No_. “Charles, I will ask as many times as it will take for you to give in and tell me.”  
   
Charles sighs again. His breath makes a floating cloud in the brittle air, for just a moment, then fades. “All right, then…” _It was just everything, tonight…the thing is, you see…I never actually had a proper Christmas. My stepfather didn’t…well. In any case, I thought perhaps since it wouldn’t be only myself and Raven this year I could…listen, I told you it wasn’t important. I’m fine. And the mansion will recover._  
   
 _I’m so sorry._  
   
 _For what? You couldn’t have known._  
   
 _I’m still sorry._  
   
 _Erik,_ Charles says, and looks at him, eyes like midnight under the darkness of the sky, but the moon sneaks up again and thoughtfully picks out the silvery hint of a smile, hovering down there in the quiet depths. _Don’t worry. Please_. And, under that, a whisper of something else, something Erik’s pretty sure he wasn’t meant to hear: _happy with this/your arms around me/please hold me forever._  
   
At that, he holds on a little more tightly, and when the smile moves a tiny bit closer to the surface, Erik’s heart skips a beat in response. “Charles,” he says out loud, “thank you for the chess set.”  
   
Charles tips his head to one side, and his hair falls into his face. “Did you like it, then?”  
   
“I love it.”  
   
“I’m so glad. You’re difficult to shop for, you know. I admit I usually cheat just a bit; I’m not good at buying presents, but most people think very loudly about items they want. Especially Sean, for some reason; I don’t quite understand his obsession with mulberry-scented lotion. But I couldn’t do that with you, so I had to guess.”  
   
“Charles,” Erik says again, “you’re amazing. I didn’t even think—I didn’t get you anything, I’m sorry.”  
   
“Oh, no, I wasn’t expecting anyone to. I never really—well. You don’t have to.” Charles looks away, for a second, and then back up, smile forming brilliant armor against the backdrop of their imperfect holiday, and Erik says, “No, I do, I think I _have_ to do this,” and then kisses him, in the middle of all the crystallized starlight and winter-bright air.  
   
Charles’s lips are cold, but they part for him, in astonishment, in welcome, in the excitement that Erik can feel flooding through both their thoughts. He pulls Charles in even closer, trying to warm him up, learning the taste of that delicious skin against his mouth, and when Charles actually kisses back, a little shy about it, not from reluctance but only out of surprise, Erik thinks _yes_ and tangles a hand in all that rumpled hair, chilly silk against his fingertips, and Charles thinks _yes_ too, right back at him, thrilled and delighted and so happy that he’s almost laughing with it, fireworks of pure joy exploding out in every possible direction, and Erik knows exactly how he feels because they’re feeling the same thing.  
   
 _Charles_ , he says, and Charles whispers _I think I love you_ , and Erik answers _I know_ , because he does, he can feel the unquestionable truth of it, and then _I love you too, you know_ , because he still hasn’t said it and he needs to say the words as well, and Charles does laugh, at that, and then shivers, because they’re still standing outside, in the middle of the night, in the needle-sharp cold.  
   
Erik curses briefly, mostly at himself, when he feels the shiver, and gets them both back into the house with as much speed as possible while still keeping both arms around Charles. _You. Bed. Now. Under all your damn blankets._  
   
Charles nods, and doesn’t argue, which means that he’s colder than he’s letting on, and Erik shoves open his bedroom door and pushes him into the mountain of pillows and says “Stay here, I’ll be right back,” and runs downstairs to the kitchen.  
   
He’s waiting with no patience at all for tea to be ready, so that he can go force-feed Charles hot beverages, when Raven sticks her head in. “Did you—”  
   
“I found him. He’s fine.” He will be. Erik will make sure of it. Anything that Charles needs, he will take care of.  
   
He spends a second being shocked at that—when did the phrase _taking care of someone_ switch from a threat, in his head, to a promise?—but he has more important things to think about right now.  
   
And Raven must see that thought on his face, because she only nods, smiles happily at him, says, “About time!” and vanishes, before Erik can manage to say anything in response.  
   
She’s right, anyway. About time. More than.  
   
He runs back upstairs more carefully, because he’s trying not to spill hot tea everywhere, and finds Charles huddled into a ball and still noticeably shivering even beneath layers of down and fleece. Those blue eyes are closed, even the long eyelashes only barely visible through a small space in all the blankets, and for a split second Erik feels his heart stop.  
   
 _Charles?_  
   
 _Oh, you’re back!_ Fluffy hair reappears from the nest of bedclothes, followed by Charles’s smile. The curtains, over at the window, are still open, and the stars and the moonlight and the iced-over grass are still watching them, but their chilly gaze doesn’t feel unfriendly at all anymore, because Charles is smiling at him and so the whole world takes notice and brightens up, conspiratorially _._  
   
 _I missed you,_ Charles adds. _It’s warmer with you here._  
   
It’s warmer for him, too, but Erik can’t say anything quite so sappy out loud even in their heads. He thinks it, though, and then tries not to be embarrassed when he sees Charles grin. “Don’t say it.” _How are you?_  
   
 _Cold. It’s getting better, though._ “I thought it was a lovely sentiment. You made me tea?”  
   
“Of course I did.” He starts to hand it over, watches Charles’s hand shake, and refuses to let go of the mug, so they end up holding onto it together. _Can I help?_  
   
 _I love you._ “Yes. You can get in bed with me.”  
   
 _I love you, too_. “Charles, I think—are you sure you want—is that a good idea right now?” He’s imagined that invitation probably a hundred different ways, and he’s never imagined himself raising any objections, but in all those images Charles has been enjoying himself and very much able to move without shivering and not in any danger of freezing to death.  
   
Charles blinks at him, eyes glinting blue through the curl of tea-scented steam. “I think what you’re thinking isn’t what I’m thinking. Or it is, but I was thinking we could do that in the morning, when I can actually feel my fingers. Sorry.”  
   
Erik pauses to process those sentences, and then puts the mug on the closest table and slides under the covers, accidentally knocking half of the pillows to the floor, and then puts his arms around Charles and tries as hard as he can to radiate heat as Charles curls up against him. They’re both still dressed and the cold lingers in the folds of clothing and the ends of fingertips and the flicker of eyelashes, but none of that matters as much as the steady pounding of Charles’s heartbeat, filling in the spaces in between his own.  
   
 _Don’t be sorry. Just be all right._  
   
 _I am, I promise. It’s already better. And I do like those thoughts, mind you. I meant it about tomorrow morning._  
   
And he can tell that that’s true, that Charles is feeling warmer, can sense it not only in the fading of all the terrible physical shakiness but also in his head, affirmation like the sweet taste of sugared tea on his tongue when Charles kisses him, so Erik says _I like those thoughts, too_ , and attempts to send an image of just how much he does like those thoughts. And Charles kisses him again, bright and joyous as the twinkling holiday lights outside, and Erik holds him as closely as possible, until, eventually, they both fall asleep, wrapped up in blue silk sheets and warm blankets and reassurance and the feeling he knows, now, that he can put a name to; it’s no longer distant, and it’s love.  
   
The next morning, he’s sitting on the bed when Charles wakes up, blinking sleepy blue eyes like warm oceans in the sunlight, where it arches in through the open curtains. Charles is still dressed in yesterday’s giant sweater and his hair is sticking out in every conceivable direction and he’s the most beautiful sight Erik’s ever seen.  
   
When he sees Erik, he tries to smile even though he’s in the middle of a yawn. And suddenly _that’s_ the most beautiful sight Erik’s ever seen.  
   
“Good morning.”  
   
“Good morning,” Charles says back, with a real smile and without a yawn this time. And his delight at finding Erik still there spills out into the room around them, a tidal wave of wordless unhidden happiness, and Erik thinks _I love you_ because he can’t not say it again, feeling the breathless crash of all that brilliant emotion.  
   
 _I love you, too_. “And it is a very good morning. Why are you over there? Come here.”  
   
Erik moves over on the bed, and Charles reaches out and tries to tug him back down to a horizontal position, but Erik says “Wait, hold on, not yet,” and Charles looks at him with surprise.  
   
“If you don’t want to—I thought you—”  
   
“Of course I want to. I have wanted to. You have no idea how badly I have wanted to. But I have something for you first.”  
   
“Oh?” Charles sits up. _You didn’t have to; I thought I told you last night. Anyway, you already, er, found something I quite liked, you know._  
   
 _I know I didn’t have to. But I wanted to. Because you should have a Christmas morning_. “Here.”  
   
He’s been hiding it under the bed, because he didn’t have the faintest idea how one might wrap a Christmas present, but he doesn’t think Charles will mind. When he pulls it out with a thought—and maybe a tiny bit of theatrical flourish, because he just can’t resist—it glitters fantastically in the morning sunlight, which he didn’t plan but feels a little proud of anyway. The sunshine approves of his offering, clearly.  
   
Charles’s eyes go wide, and he holds out his hands, and Erik drops the tiny sculpture into them with perfect precision.  
   
He’d spent the early hours of the morning mentally sorting through all the destroyed ornaments that he could sense scattered around the mansion, out where they’d been dumped by the children for disposal. In between sneaking glances to ensure that Charles hadn’t awakened, he’d collected the best of them and woven them together, tiny scraps of shining metal and wire hooks, multicolored and sparkling and spinning endlessly in place where he’d told them to.  
   
Looking at the result now, in Charles’s hands, he has to admit that he might be starting to like Christmas decorations, after all.  
   
“Erik…” Charles sounds amazed, and slightly awestruck, and the sculpture catches a sunbeam and breaks it into little dancing bits of colored light, across his face. “How did you—thank you—when did you _do_ this?”  
   
Erik shrugs, at that. “You’re not exactly a light sleeper, Charles.” _Do you like it?_  
   
“Funny, actually, I usually am. I can’t help…overhearing everyone’s dreams, most of the time. And then I tend to wake up, of course. But it seems to help, having you here.” _Of course I like it! I love it. I love you._  
   
 _And I love you. And I will sleep here with you every night, if that will help you rest._ Out loud, he says, “Merry Christmas, Charles,” and Charles answers _YES!_  
   
Charles’s inviting lips are perfectly warm when he kisses them, and his fingers, when he pulls Erik down into the bed, feel warm too, and they explore the previous night’s enjoyable thoughts at great length, until they’re both laughing and ecstatic and exhausted, while the dancing light from Erik’s sculpture weaves contented sunbeams into kaleidoscopes of light, all around them.  
   
 

  
_I’ll never tell you the secrets I’m holding_   
_I love this leash that holds me_   
_when I try to run away_   
_I felt like this on my way home_   
_and I’m not scared_   



End file.
